SEPTEMBER IS THE INTOLERABLE MONTH. GRAY mornings and cool nights of early summer become memories of the improbable; soothing fogs are burned out by relentless sunshine. Heat as solid as metal strikes like a blunt instrument. Nerves are unsteady, energy unthinkable, lethargy ill-tempered. In the Strode house the tensions were aggravated by the presence of visitors.
Fletcher’s daughter and son-in-law had come to spend their summer vacation. This is how they wrote of it when they announced their intentions, and the way they spoke of it when they arrived in the white Jaguar. “My vacation,” said Cindy almost daily. Since nursery school she had been taught that special conditions—my graduation, my school, my holidays, my debut, our neighborhood, people of our sort, my engagement, my wedding, my vacation—deserved special privilege. Six years younger than Elaine she seemed, by contrast, a child, for she had never taken responsibility of any sort, never held a job, never even finished college. Before her engagement the great event of Cynthia Strode’s life had been a debut, along with fifty-nine other girls whose parents had contributed to a charity whose board of governors sponsored a dance at the Hotel Plaza in New York.
In her father’s house she accepted the double privileges of bride and visitor. “No maid?” she asked when Elaine went into the kitchen to prepare their first meal.
“Your father doesn’t like having anyone around. We have a cleaning woman once a week. She’s very thorough.”
“Doesn’t Daddy object to her?”
“We usually go out that day, drive someplace, or he plays golf. Your father loathes these women chattering at him. Besides,” Elaine hated herself for using the tone of apology, “there’s very little to do with only two of us in the house.”
As though bestowing a favor, Cindy offered to make the twin beds in the guest room. Often they were left unmade until late afternoon. Did it matter that she and Don liked to sleep late? After a very few mornings under her father’s roof, Cindy learned there was not much to get up for. No parties were given for the visitors, no introductions offered, no invitations sent by people who dutifully entertained friends’ houseguests. Instead, the young people endured long drives with Fletcher and Elaine, went on sightseeing trips to the few unexciting places that contrasted so drearily with the glowing advertisements of the California All-Year Club. Over endless dinners in overdecorated, overpriced, high-style restaurants, Fletcher sat dumb while Elaine made conversation, laughed at Don’s jokes, hastened to answer when Cindy forgot that she was not to ask Fletcher direct questions in public places.
“I think you’re hurting Daddy more than helping him with all this privacy stuff,” Cindy said when she was alone with Elaine. “In my opinion he’d be a lot better off if you’d make an effort to have some kind of social life.”
“He doesn’t want it.”
“He may tell you that, but believe me, a man of his sort, always so lively and social, with so many connections, I mean! Not even belonging to a country club.”
“He prefers the public course. He doesn’t want a lot of people getting chummy and compassionate.”
“The right sort of people wouldn’t make him feel so badly,” Cindy argued. “No wonder he’s so desperate, doing nothing but mooning around this gloomy old house. It’s not at all healthy, psychologically.”
“It’s the way he wants it.” Elaine despised herself for the tone of appeasement.
Cindy would never give up an argument. Even when she was proven wrong she exercised the right of reassertion. Elaine grew more and more strained in conversations, which she tried to keep Fletcher from hearing. Cindy’s voice, as modern as her tastes, was hard, emphatic, and loud.
One of the girl’s school friends was the daughter of a millionaire whose name was printed in gold on the plate-glass windows of loan and trust banks all over the city. Nan, who was exactly Cindy’s age, had been married for three years to Rex Burke, a young man who had become almost as famous as his father-in-law. When Don and Cindy arrived, the young Burkes were away on “a private yacht.” Cindy was sadly disappointed and could not help showing that she considered the first two weeks of the vacation a sad waste. When Nan returned, Cindy and her husband were invited to spend Sunday at her house at Newport Beach. Cindy’s rapture at the invitation was trivial in comparison with the ecstasy of her return.
“If I ever saw gracious living! Three in help, at the seashore.”
“They’ve got a honey of a cruiser, eighty feet,” Don reported with slightly less frenzy.
“Two Rollses. She and he both drive them.”
“It’s a deduction for Rex,” Don hastened to explain. “He’s executive assistant to Nan’s father.” Don’s eloquent dark eyes fixed themselves on his father-in-law’s face.
Cindy’s father did not need an executive assistant. She announced, reproachfully, “They’ve promised to introduce Don to their lawyers.”
“Anderson, Lord & James. You must have heard of them, sir.”
“Never did,” barked Fletcher. Having no business in California he needed no lawyers. Cindy tried to impress him by telling him how famous these attorneys were and how much they would, in Nan’s husband’s opinion, welcome a bright young man trained in New York. “And besides, Daddy, you owe it to yourself to have a legal representative in the city you live in.”
“Why?” croaked Fletcher.
“Everybody does, and especially a man of your standing. I mean . . . in a city like this there are all sorts of fabulous opportunities. I want you to meet Rex Burke, he’s a perfect darling and so successful—”
“Not interested.” Fletcher’s rejection came out like a belch.
“It’d be food for you. Psychologically, I mean. And if Don went into that law firm and you’d have a member of the family as a contact, you’d know your interests wouldn’t be neglected.”
“Cindy!”
Don Hustings’s nod and frown indicated that he and Cindy had an understanding about this subject. He had asked and she had promised not to bring it up crudely. Don did not want to be looked upon as the son-in-law in search of favors.
“My husband’s too much of a gentleman for his own good.”
Cindy’s laughter reminded Fletcher of his first wife, who had somehow believed that an inappropriate or unwelcome remark could be softened by the appearance of levity. Without bothering to excuse himself, he marched out of the room.
This was by no means the end of Cindy’s efforts to promote Don’s career. Nothing was said about his getting back to his job in New York. Either he had been given an extraordinary holiday or he had been fired. Fletcher became irritable. Behind closed doors he and Elaine discussed their visitors. The air of the house had become conspiratorial. “Please try to be patient,” begged Elaine. “After all, Fletch, she is your daughter. And it’s sort of lonesome here for a young girl without a car of her own.”
Don went off nearly every day in the Jaguar. He spoke mysteriously of “important contacts.” Cindy sulked. She would have enjoyed driving the Lincoln, but Fletcher did not care to be left without a car. He did not go out a lot, but did not want to be kept at home if he felt the sudden impulse.
“Daddy, just this once,” she begged on a blistering Thursday morning. “I wouldn’t take your car away from you if it weren’t just too vital. I’ve got to do some shopping before Saturday—”
“Your father’s going to the barber this afternoon. He’ll need the car.”
They were in the kitchen, Elaine preparing lunch, Cindy pressing a dress. Fletcher answered, but no one heard. Even a normal voice could not compete with the clamor of household machines. Water splashed over rinds and peels of fruit, which were being sucked into the clashing maws of the garbage disposal, the refrigerator grumbled like an upset stomach, the stove’s exhaust roared as if in an airplane engine had been set into the wall.
“What did you say, Daddy?”
“He’s using the car this afternoon,” Elaine said for the second time.
Fletcher’s throat tightened. Elaine was always too swift and ready to answer for him. Even here at home with only his own daughter to hear his efforts at clear speech. Dependence upon his wife had become for him an abominable need, and for Elaine an important habit, damn her. Of late when she answered for him with her smug tact, he suffered the sense of strangulation.
Elaine looked at the clock nervously. “Do you think Don will be on time for lunch?”
“Don’s always on time. Unless people keep him waiting.”
People in California were always keeping Don waiting. He had gone to see another friend of Nan’s father, a person whose importance made it unimportant to be prompt with a man in Don’s situation. This made Don very late for lunch. As a result the broccoli was overcooked, the hollandaise sauce lumpy. Elaine apologized too extravagantly. Fletcher merely tasted the food and pushed away his plate.
Don praised every mouthful. “You’re a lucky man, sir, to have a wife who cooks so magnificently as well as having a great many other feminine talents.” He offered Elaine a compassionate smile.
She thanked him coolly. Fletcher’s scowl warned her that she must not show pleasure in the young man’s compliments. She tried to turn their attention to Don’s business. “You haven’t told us what happened at your meeting this morning. How did it go?”
“It didn’t.”
“Didn’t you see Mr. Heatherington?” wailed Cindy.
“For five minutes. After he’d kept me waiting all that time, he shook hands with me and said we’d have to arrange another date.”
“People out here are impossible. No manners at all,” Cindy said.
“He had a board meeting. But he made another appointment.”
“How soon?”
“A week from Tuesday.”
“Not till then? He’s impossible.”
“He’s flying to Hawaii tonight. For a week.”
Cindy looked toward heaven. Fletcher rumbled out a question. This time they all understood and wished they hadn’t. The attack was direct. Didn’t Don’s bosses in New York expect him back on the job?
Cindy answered quickly, “They’ve given Don a leave of absence. They don’t want to let him go permanently, but if he finds something better out here, they won’t hold him back.” She tossed an arch smile at her husband, tilted a shoulder, let out a crescendo of laughter.
Fletcher looked grim. At the time of the engagement both Cindy and her mother had assured him that Donald Hustings had brilliant prospects and was considered indispensable by his employers.
“Well, sir,” Don said glibly, “they’ve been decent enough people to work for, but a man has to consider his future. And, frankly, they’ve got too much family in the firm. All the important cases go to nephews and grandsons, and if you’re not related you get nothing but minor cases. So I decided to look around out here.”
Cindy removed from her mouth the stalk of celery she had been sucking like a stick of candy. “After all, Los Angeles is supposed to be the coming land of opportunity, and with all of Don’s connections out here, we thought . . .” Confused by her father’s frown she giggled again.
“What connections?” croaked Fletcher.
“Nan’s father,” Cindy began. Don cut her off with the statement that he had excellent contacts of his own. Cindy interrupted with stubborn authority. “Nan’s father couldn’t have tried harder to help us if Don were his own son-in-law.”
The fact could be questioned. His own son-in-law had been made executive assistant while the only help the banker had given Don was introductions to certain friends. Before this could be stated, Don told his father-in-law, apologetically, “We know you’re not active now, sir. We didn’t expect anything.” Expectancy shone out of his clear, bright, undergraduate face. At twenty-nine, Don Hustings had the docility and easy charm of a boy who has gone to the correct prep school and college. Spiritually he had never got out of either. He continued to wear the deferential garments of the schoolboy who knows his place in the company of older, wealthier men. Good breeding and background were as obvious as his Maryland accent and fresh complexion. He had many notable ancestors but the family had been impoverished by a series of historical events that had begun with the Civil War and continued through a century of panics and depressions. Don could recite these misfortunes like a catechism.
He had dark, deep-set eyes and the prominent curling lips of a classical statue. Adoring him, Cindy could never forget that other girls’ fathers poured benefits upon less worthy sons-in-law. Vehemently she declared, “Don isn’t the type to depend on relations. And he’s had a couple of very good offers in case you’re interested.”
Fletcher rumbled out another question.
Don understood well enough to answer, “I couldn’t accept that sort of money, sir.”
The money people offered was never satisfactory to Don and Cindy. The ten thousand dollars that Fletcher had sent his daughter as a wedding present had simply gone with the wind. Don had been deeply in debt when they married, and was now in danger of being engulfed. Both he and Cindy felt it important to keep up appearances.
“Couldn’t accept that sort of money!” The voice in Fletcher’s mind was clear and scornful. The young man’s lack of humility irritated him. He would have liked to remind the complacent fellow that he had made his money without asking favors of anyone. Aloud, “What the hell do you think you’re worth?” he bellowed. Caught up in anger he forgot the therapist’s instructions for producing sound and controlling breath.
“What did you say, Daddy?”
Elaine had understood but did not try to interpret Fletcher’s wrath. She felt sorry for Don and did not wish to see him humiliated again. Her mouth closed stubbornly, and she pressed herself back as if her body were part of the chair. Don caught her eye. A swift glance flashed between them. Fletcher, watching warily, saw these two in the familiar vision, unclothed, embracing. On the table his big hands lay curled in frustration. His skin itched with impotent rage.
Elaine started collecting plates. Sighing, Cindy followed. The two men sat like strangers on a bus. Fletcher’s silence embarrassed Don, but his conversation would have been harder to take. If it had not taken so much effort, Fletcher would have let him know what he thought about a generation that believed the world owed it a living. Had he succeeded in expressing himself he would not have been so sensitive to a swift exchange of smiles when Elaine returned with the dessert. Again the vision flashed across the screen of consciousness. What Fletcher saw was not a girl in a flowered dress and a young man in a neat summer jacket erect behind his plate, but the guilty pair—faithless wife, worthless son-in-law—naked in a shadowy place.
“Why are you looking so impatient, dear? You’ve got plenty of time. Didn’t you say you’d put off the barber until four today?”
Fletcher had told her, but she had apparently forgotten, that he was to see his dentist that afternoon. He spoke angrily, too fast and without giving thought to breathing and the control of abdominal muscles. Sounds like animal grunts struck his ears with fresh agony.
Before Cindy could chirp the usual “What, Daddy?” Elaine translated with her loathsome tact, “Oh, darling, I forgot your dentist appointment. But you’ve got plenty of time still. Look, I’ve made you a chocolate mousse.”
For no reason Cindy giggled, Don stared at the centerpiece as if he hoped to find some mystic answer among the asters. Elaine set the plate before him. Once more they looked at each other, heat welled up in Fletcher, and he flung the dish of chocolate mousse at his wife.
“Daddy, what are you doing?”
Under blond curls Cindy’s face glowed with delight. She had good features and flawless skin, but was too solid to be noticeable among all the pretty girls who did their lips and eyes and hair in the same fashion and wore clothes from the proper stores. She had never been so lovely as at this moment of witnessing her father’s cruelty to the woman who had taken his daughter’s rightful place in his heart.
AT THE RISK of being late for the dentist’s appointment, Fletcher lingered in the house until Don drove off to meet a fraternity brother who had good contacts. Cindy took one look at the untidy kitchen and decided to drive into the city with her father.
Elaine set about her chores briskly, eager to be done. Even housework came easier when there was no one to watch, interrupt, demand attention. To save effort she stacked dishes on the tray and carried them to the kitchen. At the threshold she paused, struck anew by the clutter, confusion seemed symbolic, her life a mess of untidiness, disappointment, and futile chores. The tray trembled in her hands. She thought of herself cringing, a victim without dignity or self-respect, while her husband assaulted her with pudding.
Her tray fell. Porcelain clattered and broke on the kitchen tiles. Plates, cups, saucers, glasses, everything. It was no accident. She had willed the destruction. So many broken dishes! Fletcher would be furious.
For an instant tears threatened. Elaine thought of excuses, confession, soft appeal. These were immediately rejected. Defiance hardened her. Deliberately and in malice she walked to the counter and, one by one, hurled every dish upon the tiled floor. One plate rebelled, rolled into a corner, remained whole. She picked it up and flung it down with sturdy malevolence. When every soiled dish and glass lay in shards, she collected all the dirty pots and utensils, carried them to the garbage cans, covered them securely and returned to the kitchen.
She had no idea that she was being watched.
Next she set about the task of sweeping up the wreckage, gathering broken bits into the dustpan, emptying it into the garbage tins. On her third trip she saw the man, recoiled and instinctively hid the guilty dustpan behind her back.
“Didn’t you hear my car? I didn’t see you in the garden so I came to find you here.”
It was Ralph Julian. After all of her confessions to his invisible shape the solid man seemed unreal. Her hand trembled. He took the dustpan from her.
“Accident?”
“I broke them on purpose.” Defiant, as though he had provoked the destruction, she laughed spitefully.
“So many dishes?”
“Just the ones we used at lunch, Service for four. We’ve still got eight of everything. Haviland.” She laughed again at the extravagance. “We bought the set, a dozen of each, when we moved in here.”
Ralph helped her with the rest of the clearing up. “Don’t say anything to your husband until he’s in a better mood.”
“What makes you think he’s in a bad one?”
“Something must have caused the havoc. Or do you break dishes just for the hell of it?”
They stood under the olive tree. Leaf shadows darkened her face. She had changed from the soiled dress, so that there were no visible signs of the assault. For all that she had ached to tell Ralph, she could find nothing to say except that it had been a long time since they had seen each other. Ralph had wanted to visit her, he said, but had kept away because he thought her husband did not approve of him.
“It’s not you, it’s every man. The way he watches me, you’d think the supermarket was a bordello.” She had learned the word from her father. Once she had said it to Fletcher and he had laughed, telling her that she was too genteel. “In this country we call it a whorehouse.” The recollection brought a faint smile.
Again there was silence under the olive tree. Hot afternoon sun pierced the shadow. Elaine asked him into the house. He reached ahead to open the screen door. Her body brushed against his, so that she stiffened and hurried ahead. There was still a clutter in the kitchen but she made no apologies.
In the living room harsh light lay in yellow rectangles and sent up cruel blades of brightness from the polished tiles between Oriental rugs. Elaine hurried to draw the curtains. At once the mood softened. A dimmed mirror threw back her image. “I ought to comb my hair,” she said, but threw herself upon the couch, stretching her long legs and resting sandaled feet upon a cushion.
Ralph stood above the couch and looked down upon her body. “I’ve thought of you every day.” His tone was too ardent. “I couldn’t stay away any longer.”
She sat up abruptly, asked for a cigarette, moved to the far edge of the couch after he had leaned close to give her a light. His hands smelled of antiseptic soap. Elaine held herself tight to show indifference. He sat at the couch’s other end. The curtains blew out like inflated balloons. Elaine and Ralph watched as though this were some strange phenomenon.
She thought of the meetings in daydreams, the conversations carried on in silence, the relief of confession. My husband wants to die. In every revery the facts gushed out; in the man’s presence she felt a cowardly fool. Some day he’ll do it. Perhaps, she told herself, it was all a product of her inflamed imagination; or worse, a guilty wish. No, no, no, her heart protested, she did not want to gain freedom that way. Her hands flew to cover the shameful color that flushed in her face.
Through all the weeks that he had denied himself this visit, Ralph had thought about Elaine, cherished many images, tried to capture the elusive delight of her changing expressions, recalled the modeling of bone, the coral tint which often and unexpectedly brightened ivory flesh. He had tried without success to exorcise the spell by making love to a handsome nurse, had told himself severely that he did not approve of involvements with married women. “I’ve got something to show you.” With a tense hand he took out his wallet and from it took a clipping mounted on cardboard.
“Recognize the girl?”
“Me. But years ago.”
Professional dignity slipped away. No longer self-contained and superior, the doctor became a diffident boy. He had found the picture in an advertisement in an old magazine given to him by a patient who had wanted him to read a story he had written. “The girl looked like you, and then I remembered that you told me you’d put yourself through college working as a model.”
“That’s ten years ago. I was a sophomore and missed an ancient history class to pose for that picture.”
He returned the picture to his wallet carefully while his eyes were fixed upon her. The scrutiny was almost contact. Elaine became nervous, left the couch, sought protection in deeper shadow. There was the smell of challenge in the room, in the scent of flowers, in the hot wind. Ralph’s body was long and spare, his head narrow. Fiery red hot sparks shot from his green-tinted eyes. Not daring to let him see that she recognized mood and masculinity, Elaine bustled about the room in the need to avoid contact of eye or hand. She talked in a nervous, flutey voice about the years when she had worked as a model, rushed from class to photographer’s studio, from studio to date. Her days and nights had been too crowded, she had studied when she came in after theater and dancing, had got along with three or four hours of sleep. Excitement had carried her along, she had lived in a whirl of fascinating activity. Ralph saw her as she must have been before her marriage, a gay and popular girl, teasing and enchanting the many men who had surely been in love with her.
“But you wouldn’t have liked me then. I was too frivolous.” Recollection of frivolity brought out a stream of laughter, “I’m sure you were much more serious when you were at college.”
“Too serious.” There had never been a moment in his life when Ralph had doubted his dedication to the profession of his foster-father. Above all in his life he had wanted to prove himself to the generous pair who had treated him as their own son.
At last she settled down again, hands folded primly in her lap. Ralph chose the far end of the couch. In the dim room they sat like sedate children waiting to be sent out onto the floor of the dancing school. Presently Ralph moved closer and reached for Elaine’s hand. The kiss caught them both off balance.
For months she had been thinking about this man, but not in this way, not physically. He had been her confessor, the vessel into which she had poured her fears for her husband; certainly not the instrument of relief or revenge. Surprise made her vulnerable. She clung to Ralph, accepted and returned the kiss. But only for a few instinctive seconds. With a shudder, recognizing weakness, she pulled away, pushed at his chest, made movements of rejection.
“Oh, no, please. Please not . . .”
He became fiercer, murmured that he loved her, that he had tried to forget about her, that no woman had ever moved him so deeply and completely. Elaine seemed not to have heard. Both trembled and shrank into themselves. They heard wheels on the dead-end street, became paralyzed at the thought of having to face her husband calmly. The car turned and drove down the hill. Elaine rose and once again sought protection in the shadows. Ralph followed. Overhead a plane buzzed. They listened like people waiting for a bomb to destroy them. She threw back her head and stroked her neck in a way that Ralph found unbearably seductive.
Having once rejected him, Elaine did not expect to be seized again. The second shock swept away all defenses. She grew limp, pressed her breasts against his body, arched backward, supple and ready. Ralph carried her to the couch. “Not here, not in this room,” she whispered as though it were the place rather than the act that would betray her husband. Her mind had cleared, she knew precisely what she was doing and loathed herself, but she had been so long deprived that she had no more will to resist. Her body felt remote from mind and heart as Ralph lifted and carried her to her own room and there, upon her own bed, took her. They made love in silence with no words of passion, no moans of rapture. Her lover was ardent and experienced, but Elaine felt less delight than the cessation of throbbing need.
Poor Fletcher, she thought.
Afterward she lay still, neither fully released nor repentant, but only arid and indifferent. Ralph came alive to the situation and groaned, “What are we going to do now?” All Elaine could say was, “Hurry, hurry. Please get dressed and go quickly.”
HELPLESS IN THE padded chair, his jaw weighted with clamps, pipes, and tubes, Fletcher became the most captive of audiences. Not even the consolation of revery was permitted. Dr. Gentian indulged in the conversational flux that is the occupational disease of dentists and barbers. Although Fletcher had become accustomed to muteness he found these sessions particularly irritating because the doctor could not restrain his admiration for Fletcher’s wife. In the most jocular way he reminded the poor man of his tremendous luck in having won the devotion of a delightful girl.
“So much younger, too. You must have something on the ball to keep her so faithful. At your age and with your trouble.” The dentist touched his own Adam’s apple.
Medical authority gave Dr. Gentian special privilege. He did not feel restrained in speaking of the laryngectomy and its physical and psychological effects. He always had tidbits of unpleasant information. While he drilled and hammered he gave dull, repetitious lectures studded with technical phrases. From this he went on to another painful subject. One of his patients had been sued by his wife for half a million dollars. The drama had been covered by the morning and evening papers but the dentist, having looked into the protagonists’ mouths, had extra tidbits about their teeth and their passions. He knew better than any reporter why Mr. X had failed to hold the affections of his wife. “Not that you’re anything like him,” Dr. Gentian shouted over the whirring of the drill, “a big good-looking man like you. He’s a runt, a regular Mr. Five-by-Five who goes in for these tall, bleached dolls. She’s nothing, if you ask me, but a run-of-the-mill gold-digger while your wife’s true blue, all wool and a yard wide. And a million dollars’ worth of sex appeal.”
Held prisoner in the padded chair, Fletcher thought of the chocolate-colored blotch on Elaine’s flowered silk dress. He saw her startled eyes, the shocked and graceless movement as she backed away. A groan escaped.
“Am I hurting you?”
The patient, bereft of larynx and encumbered by a mouthful of instruments, could give no more answer than another strangled moan.
A moment of rest was permitted. Then Dr. Gentian went on with his drilling and his story: “And one fine day when he was out on business his wife packed her things, priceless jewelry and four minks, and left him flat.”
Elaine had not allowed her husband to buy her a mink coat. She had handsome wool wraps of various colors, satins and brocades for evening and an ermine-lined velvet cloak for cold nights. He saw her wearing it in New York, a young woman who had left a brutal, demanding, and impotent husband to enjoy freedom. A new vision rose. Somewhere beyond the dentist’s drill and cabinets he saw his house deserted, too bright and glaring without his wife’s gentle shadow. The house was Elaine; she had selected and furnished it, fixed its proportions, determined its colors, arranged its routines, filled it with her past, the looks and ornaments that had belonged to her family.
At once Fletcher felt that he must leap from the dentist’s chair, desert the barber, jump into the car and speed to her side. He did not. Dr. Gentian was allowed to finish, to spend galling moments in trivial talk, to consult his book and arrange another appointment. Again prisoner in the barber’s chair, Fletcher listened to political and scandalous gossip, heard praise of women, boasts of male prowess. He allowed the manicurist to pick at his cuticle and thought of his wife speeding in a taxi toward the airport. At long last he was free to pick up his car.
Cindy was to have waited at the parking lot. It was absurd to have expected her to be on time. Fletcher passed the time by studying displays in shop windows. He was tempted to buy an enameled brooch for Elaine, a box of chocolates, a twenty-dollar art book, a Japanese kimono. Before the operation, when his voice was whole, he used to burst into the New York apartment shouting, “Hi, lovable, I’ve brought you a present.” Recently he had brought her a pair of amethyst earrings which she treasured less for their value than the price he had paid in pride in letting a strange shopkeeper hear his mangled voice.
Today a gift would be a gesture of penitence. She would understand too well, offer tact too generously. Better let the whole thing blow over . . . unless she had already packed and left him.
At the parking lot he found Cindy waiting and reproachful, swearing that she had not been more than three minutes late. Her hands were empty. She had bought nothing, merely enjoyed looking at things too costly for her modest purse. Fletcher did not bother to comment. At the time of the divorce he had established a trust fund for his daughter. Cindy’s income was around seventy-five dollars a week, secure and permanent. What had she to complain about?
“I think it’s time we had a heart-to-heart talk, Daddy. It’s impossible to say anything in front of Don, he’s so proud.”
Fletcher only half listened. Rush hour traffic, changing lights, heedless drivers, the glare of late afternoon sunshine, long lines of cars belching gas fumes, compounded his impatience. He drove too fast, cheated the changing lights in the urgent need to find Elaine at home, loving and unchanged. He framed the words of apology, heard her laughter and forgiveness.
Cindy talked on and on about Don’s misfortunes, not only in the office where they gave the best cases to members of the partners’ families, but in previous jobs. “He simply doesn’t have the connections in New York. And it’s too brutal there, Daddy, you don’t know.”
The boulevard climbed a small hill. A shaft of sunlight smote Fletcher’s eyes. Elaine’s laughter dissolved, the smile vanished. He saw her empty room, the dressing table bare of her jewel case, her jars and bottles, a note on the polished wood. She would say she had borne his moods as long as possible and that she was sorry, so terribly, terribly, tragically sorry. Hidden in a place where no one would ever think of looking for them, Fletcher kept a secret store of sleeping pills.
“We’ve never asked you for any favors. Or money either,” said Cindy with a little grimace of humility. “Money doesn’t matter so terribly much to us except that you’ve got to keep up appearances. People would never want to pay a man a decent salary if they think he needs it.” The absolving stream of laughter mingled with the shriek of a passing police car’s siren. “Not that my husband expected anything, but people did talk a lot about me having a rich father. I told Don the truth, that seventy-five a week was every blessed cent I had in the world, but still there was the impression. Could I help it that Mom keeps up that big house and all? It wouldn’t have been natural if he hadn’t expected some excellent contacts at least. And when we came out here . . .” The laughter fluttered indecisively. Since Fletcher gave her no encouragement Cindy went on, “We did think you’d need a legal representative. Or something. Of course Don would have to pass his bar examinations but he’s been reading a lot on California law. It’s not too different basically, he says.”
They turned off the boulevard onto a shady street. In a passing taxi Fletcher noticed a passenger in a large black straw hat. It was the kind of hat Elaine wore on sunny days. Fear stabbed at his heart again. He turned to look backward.
“Please, Daddy, watch where you’re going!”
He had crossed over the yellow line. He pulled the car over and pressed his foot hard upon the accelerator.
“Daddy! We’re in a twenty-five-mile zone.”
He drove the rest of the way at thirty and felt like a cripple. The ascent of their hill seemed endless. In the driveway he sounded his horn. The signal often brought Elaine running out to meet him. The kitchen was empty, the stove cold and without the pots that ought at this hour to have been bubbling and giving out pleasant odors. Her bedroom was too tidy, but the jars were still there, the jewel box and perfume bottles. In the living room the cushions were plumped up and in place. No newspapers and magazines littered the tables of the den. Alone, deserted, voiceless, and spent, Fletcher thought once more of his hidden pills.
At the end of the corridor a door opened, “Are you back? Oh, dear, I’m late. I didn’t hear you come in, the shower was on, I guess.” Elaine ran toward him, sweet-scented and warm. Of their own volition his arms curved around her. She pressed herself close to enjoy his strength. Resentment and fear fled, he forgot frustration, believed himself the man he had been, pulled open the white toweling robe to feel her soft flesh.
Cindy appeared. Elaine, self-conscious when her husband’s daughter witnessed the most ordinary caress, jerked herself away. Fletcher grunted, furious because the priceless, hopeful moment had been interrupted.
“What’s this?” asked the girl.
“A hat,” Elaine said.
Cindy held it aloft, a man’s hat, high-crowned, narrow-brimmed. “Whose?”
“Dr. Julian’s. He was here this afternoon.”
Elaine moved backward toward the wall, as if deeper shadow could make her invisible. After Ralph had left, she had changed the sheets on her bed, stood under the shower, soaped herself in the hottest water she could bear, rinsed with a cold stream, seeking discomfort as partial penance.
“A doctor. He took care of me when I had the flu, and he’s a friend, too. He asked for you Fletch.” There was no response. Elaine’s voice reached a higher pitch, was forced down as she added, “He used to live in this house. He stops in to see us sometimes. He was visiting a patient in the neighborhood.”
In the redundant, shrill explanation Fletcher sensed disquiet. Visions flashed, nude bodies writhed, sparks shot high, miniature suns dazzled, a carousel of arms and loins, caresses, attitudes, breasts, positions, all at a giddy pace. Fury rose, phrases came to mind, savage anger stifled by affliction and helplessness. Elaine had disappeared. Her bedroom door was closed. She had shut herself away from him.
At the corner bar in the den he filled a glass with ice, poured unmeasured whiskey. The drink brought no solace. This day had been an endurance contest against trivial irritations. Tomorrow would be no better. To regain self-esteem he looked backward to a past seen as a flashing parade of challenges and victories. Setbacks and losses were forgotten, for in the end he had put across big deals, recouped losses, kept ardent faith in himself. Fletcher Strode! Better off dead than enduring this life of petty defeats; showing the spleen of a spoiled child, throwing food at his wife, sulking because she had talked to another man.
Elaine had never given him any real cause, his reasonable mind argued, to suspect disloyalty. On another level he ached to punish the faithless creature, to keep her forever from the pleasures of love. The diary was brought out of its hiding place, touched reverently like a secret scripture or a secret weapon.
Her doctor paid another call on a healthy girl. Is the redhead in league with her? Perhaps Dr. Julian is only her sucker being used to provide her with some pill or poison that will do the job on me. Maybe a pain-killer because she is soft and would not want to see me suffer. I do not think she would dare tell him about her diabolical plan. Maybe she consults him about the psychological condition of her poor husband. It would be clever if she told him she worries about me wanting to commit suicide. How little they know about me. As if Fletcher Strode would take the coward’s way out . . .
He stopped to read what he had written, proud and somewhat astonished by his use of words. Elaine came into the room so silently that Fletcher saw her as a vision transformed to reality; not the jealous vision of a woman writhing in lewd love, but the specter of a living angel. She wore a long hostess gown of some filmy material that swayed as she moved so that soft womanly curves and youthful suppleness were happily revealed. To shield himself from the thrust of pleasure aroused by her presence, he growled without the slightest effort to overcome disability, “What’s taken you so long?” and at the same time locked his diary away in the desk drawer.
“Sorry, dear, I dawdled. I’ll have supper in half an hour.” Moist eyes and a nasal huskiness gave her away. She had been crying. This was not like Elaine. She had cried prettily at their wedding, had given in to small, sporadic cloudbursts when she had sought the comfort of his arms the day her mother died, had once at the hospital, just after his operation, turned away with clenched fists and muffled sniffles of fury against her weakness.
Fletcher tried to find a comfortable way of saying he regretted his stupid gesture with the pudding.
“I have something to confess,” she said slowly.
He was shaken by a sudden chill.
“I broke the lunch dishes, all we used today, the Haviland. I”—she raised her head and offered the sight of her moist and swollen eyes as a sacrifice of pride—“I did it on purpose. In a hideous tantrum.”
In relief he offered broken laughter. She floated toward him, touched her gentle palm to his cheek. Caught by her fragrance, he could not control the impulse to pull her hand over his mouth and kiss it tenderly.